1. Field of the Invention
In the manual knitting process, the yarn is taken out off the skein directly onto the knitting needles. One of the most important elements of manual knitting is maintaining consistency and uniformity in the stitches of the fabric. This results from the knitter manually applying a constant amount of tension to the yarns as the stitches are formed on the needles. The skein is usually placed close to the knitter, for example, either in their lap or in the chair next to them. When different yarns are to be knitted together, problems of organization of the yarns arise. The skeins of different yarns are usually placed on opposite sides of the knitter. However, when the pattern requires a change from one to the other, the knitter must twist the newly added yarn about the other yarn. This creates a twist in the yarns that extends from the knitting needles to the skein. The knitter can separate the twist immediately by changing places with the skeins. This is impractical because the newly added yarn may be used for a very few stitches and the knitter would have to discard the needles to manipulate the skeins resulting in a loss of continuity in the fabric. The knitter usually proceeds through as many changes in the yarns as possible before the yarns will not feed from the skeins to the needles because of a massive tangle of the different yarns between the needles and the skeins. The knitting must stop and the entangled yarns separated before the knitting can be resumed. It is, therefore, an object of this invention to provide a new compact, lightweight apparatus which provides positive control of the different yarns and delivers them to the needles without entanglement. The present invention relates to manual knitting of garments or articles which are constructed of different colors and/or textured yarns. The apparatus is a manually operated device that reduces the amount of time it takes to organize or untangle the different yarns during the knitting process. The device allows for an uninterrupted and orderly flow of the different yarns to the needles without the need to periodically stop the knitting and untangle the yarns. Different yarns are placed in the yarn storage containers and as the knitting proceeds with each run of stitches being cast, the apparatus is turned back and forth by hand or foot. This action of the apparatus prevents the yarns from twisting around each other and becoming entangled.
In some manual knitting procedures, such as knitting sleeve elements of a garment, separate elements are knitted simultaneously but with a different yarn to maintain the elements as separate structures. In this instance, the different yarns come from different skeins but are otherwise the same.
The device is easily portable because of its light weight and small size. It can also be used as a storage container for yarns, when not knitting or when traveling.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The use of a yarn support apparatus is shown by U.S. Pat. No. 5,005,380. The device of that patent has vertical and horizontal framework which is mounted on a support surface such as a table and clamped into place. The vertical framework supports a horizontally disposed rotating shaft that carries two yarn receptacles on opposite ends of a propeller-like device. The propeller and yarn receptacles are free to rotate as the yarn is used in the knitting process. It is evident that when the weight of the yarns in the receptacles is not equal, the heavier receptacle will rotate to the lowest point thereby adding a half-twist to the yarns.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,635,834 discloses another device which addresses the problem of entanglement of yarns during the knitting process. This device has a plurality of yarn storage compartments in a rectangular box. The yarns are fed through the end of the compartments and through orifices in a movable bar attached to the end wall of the box. The movable bar has a length approximately half the width of the box and is pivotally mounted at the centerof the box end wall. When a run of stitches is completed in the pattern, the bar is rotated from its original position through 180 degrees to a new position. Every time the knitter must release tension on the yarns to manipulate the bar a variable stitch is introduced in the pattern. It would appear from the prior art that there is need for a new and improved yarn container and organizer which permits tangle free delivery of different yarns Lo the knitting needles.